Two major prosecutions for abuse of power make the news today. First, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby will go to prison for perjury and obstruction of justice:
Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Tuesday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, stood calmly before a packed courtroom as a federal judge said the evidence overwhelmingly proved his guilt.
“People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem,” U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.
Regardless of the ludicrous nature of a three-year investigation where the perpetrator never got charged with the initial suspected crime, Libby got what he deserved, having lied to investigators and the grand jury. People cannot commit perjury to block an investigation and expect to simply walk away from it. A jury concluded that Libby did exactly that, and the sentence is commensurate with the crime.
Will the conviction survive on appeal? Likely it will. Again, the special-counsel investigation got out of control, like just about every special-counsel investigation that preceded it. That doesn’t give Libby the right to commit perjury and obstruct justice. It’s more likely that Bush will eventually pardon Libby, but probably not until after the 2008 election.
A pardon is much less likely for William Jefferson, who apparently gave new meaning to the word “globalization” in his quest for cash:
Nearly two years after federal agents reported finding $90,000 in a freezer in his Washington home, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson has been charged with a global campaign to solicit bribes, obstruct justice and engage in racketeering, Justice Department officials said Monday. …
The charges are based on 11 schemes in which Jefferson allegedly solicited bribes for himself and his family from government and business officials in the United States, Nigeria, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome e Principe, U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said at an afternoon news conference.
“Mr. Jefferson corruptly traded on his good office and on the Congress where he served … to enrich himself and his family through a pervasive pattern of fraud, bribery, and corruption that spanned many years and two continents,” Rosenberg said.
Jefferson sought millions of dollars in cash and company stock and received “somewhat less than $400,000,” Rosenberg said.
CNN does a better job of reporting on Jefferson’s status in Congress than the Post did yesterday. Kevin Bohn and Kelli Arena note that Pelosi removed Jefferson from the Ways and Means Committee last year, but then also report that she tried to assign him to Homeland Security this year. They credit the Republicans with ending that maneuver.
One prosecution ended, and another begins. It’s another day in Washington DC.
UPDATE: Commenters are complaining about Sandy Berger getting a walk while Libby does 30 months. Put aside for the moment that the same exact Justice Department handled both (no one told them to go easy on Berger, after all, and they did just that), what exactly is the argument here? Because they screwed up the Berger prosecution, that no one else should be prosecuted for obstruction? Sorry, that doesn’t fly. That puts the entire DC culture in a tit-for-tat game that allows no consequences for abuses of power. I don’t want that kind of government — do you?
A jury of Americans found Libby guilty of the charges against him. The sentencing is commensurate with the convictions. If Libby obstructed justice and perjured himself, which the jury found that he did, then he should be punished for it. If Berger got off scot-free, then blame the DoJ under George Bush and Alberto Gonzales, but it doesn’t give Libby a pass on lawbreaking.
I would have no problem if George Bush chose to pardon Libby, and I think it’s appropriate in this case, considering the circumstances. But that’s not the same thing as saying that he should have been somehow shielded from prosecution because of the incompetence in handling the Berger case. A jury found that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice, and just like anyone else convicted of those crimes, he should be punished for them.
UPDATE II: Apparently, people still believe I’m being unclear. Let me lay it out this way:
* A duly constituted jury heard the evidence in front of a judge. Libby and his lawyers presented their defense. That jury found that Libby committed perjury and obstruction of justice. That’s the way the criminal-justice system works in this country.
* A 30-month sentence for obstruction of justice and perjury is not out of line, especially for multiple counts. Both are serious crimes against the rule of law, and should be punished accordingly.
* Whether Clarice Feldman thinks I’ve been following the case is immaterial. A jury convicted Libby, and they followed the case better than anyone. I’m going to accept the result of the justice system and respect that decision.
* Libby has plenty of opportunity to appeal the decision. If it’s wrong, it will likely be overturned. It will not be overturned on the basis of Victoria Toensing’s opinions on the law she wrote, because Libby didn’t get convicted of violating that law. It’s immaterial to the charges Libby faced and on which he got convicted.
* If George Bush wants to pardon Libby, I don’t see a problem with that. That’s part of due process as well, and it’s a political decision for George Bush. I think it would be a political mistake to offer one before the appeals run out. There are extenuating circumstances that warrant consideration of a pardon — but that doesn’t mean that Libby should have gotten a pass from the judge after the convictions. (It certainly would be a more supportable pardon than most of those granted by Clinton at the end of his term.)
If you support the rule of law, then this sentencing was a foregone conclusion. He was convicted weeks ago, and people who get convicted on these charges get sentenced to prison time, especially those who work in the executive branch of our federal government. I fail to see the reason for all the current hysteria over this sentencing.
Wow, Libby gets prison time, chock up a big win for the Bush DOJ! Cap’n, bet you a six pack that Bush does NOT pardon Libby. No way he is going to undo his AG’s only accomplishment.
I vehemently disagree with you Captain Ed regarding your assertion that Libby ‘got what he deserved.’ Although Judge Walton called the evidence against Libby ‘overwhelming’ such was not the case. Every shred of evidence against Libby was of a ‘he said/she said’ nature with various reporters whose recollections were equally porous as Libby’s.
More importantly the jury was allowed to hear arguments regarding Dick Cheney and his alleged activities which the jury transferred onto Libby – The jury said as much in exit interviews. This entire affair was a judicial set-up from the beginning involving the CIA, beureaucrats at justice and aided and abetted by an unscrupulous rabidly partisan prosecutor, not to mention a partisan dim bulb judge and a DC jury with a stated axe to grind.
For you to blog that Libby got what he deserved shows you didn’t really follow this case with your usual diligence and you really have no business making such assertions. You may argue we have to believe in the jury system in America but at what point does that argument become blind faith?
This inexcusable show trial was a MIS-carriage of justice from the very moment the prosecutor sought an indictment. Really Captain, did you follow this case at all?!!
According to the prosecutor the reason “the perpetrator never got charged with the initial suspected crime” was BECAUSE of Libby’s obstruction of justice. This is why he was prosecuted for OBSTRUCTING. He blocked the prosecutor from getting to the bottom of what happened.
Cap’n Ed wrote:
Regardless of the ludicrous nature of a three-year investigation where the perpetrator never got charged with the initial suspected crime, Libby got what he deserved, having lied to investigators and the grand jury. People cannot commit perjury to block an investigation and expect to simply walk away from it. A jury concluded that Libby did exactly that…
Whether or not Libby “got what he deserved” is a hotly-debated topic among conservatives (liberals, of course, considered him a priori guilty simply because he worked for the hated Chimpy McBushitler’s White House). Those who think that Fitzpatrick overreached and railroaded Libby have powerful arguments on their side, but ultimately I have to side with the Cap’n: Libby was found guilty by a jury in an open courtroom. Unless and until somebody find evidence of real judicial malfeasance, I have to say that he is getting his just desserts. I wish that it would serve as a warning to all those in DC who think that they are somehow above the law, but I doubt that it will.
And Sandy Burglar gets what — to turn in his law license?
I loathe perjury prosecutions where there is no underlying criminal conviction of anyone, such as Richard Armitage for actually being the leaker.
The conviction and sentencing of Scooter Libby is a travesty. Compare this to the Sandy Berger obstruction of justice. I’m really getting tired of the rules being different for Republicans and Democrats.
Scooter Libby ought to be pardoned, and presented with a Presidential apology. The members of the jury that convicted him ought to serve those 30 months. At the very least, Patrick Fitzgerald ought to loose his law license.
Ideally, Fitzgerald will be taken into the public square, on national television, and horse whipped
.
Official Libby sentence watch
Let’s call this the official Scooter Libby sentence page. (Note the lack of focus on the MSNBC site about Jefferson).
Comment away. Should begin about 9:30am. I’ll say it again, regardless of the sentence he won’t see a day in ja…
Libby Sentenced to 30 Months
Scooter Libby will serve 2 1/2 years in prison for lying and obstructing justice in the Valerie Plame investigation. Not as long as Patrick Fitzgerald wanted, but longer than probation officers recommended.
Tom Maguire gets into the gory details as alw…
The Today show spent about 20 seconds describing the William Jefferson charges this morning. I don’t remember how much time they spent on the day charges against Duke Cunningham were announced but I’m guessing it was a wee bit longer…
I agree with Jon Pritchard — 100% !
There is no way one can compare Scooter Libby with any of the Dems who have done wrong and yet gone free – or worse been held up as paragons of virtue! Not by conservatives but by by by the DEMS….. ARGGGGG
and then you, Cap’n Ed have the temerity to say ‘he got what he deserved’ !!!!!
I’ve gotta go shopping and get my mind off this travesty.
docjim Wrote:
‘Libby was found guilty by a jury in an open courtroom.’
Well this is where the rubber meets the road then? A jury in an open courtroom. All that says is the lynching was public.
Every single day of the trial learned attorneys such as Victoria Teonsing and writers like Clarice Feldman shone a bright light on the proceedings and evidence and each point bit of incrimination against Libby was clearly inadequate to prove guilt.
So docjim is yours the standard by which we must live in America? To throw our hands in the air and say ‘a man was indicted, prosecuted and a jury agreed’ so let’s move on? Is there no possibility that justice gets miscarried in these types of proceedings…particualrly under such a labyrynth of circumstances?
Juries get cases wrong every single day in this nation. What this show trial says is we cannot trust the massive beureaucratic government as stewards of a what was once a fair and decent system of justice.
This was a Democrat hit job against the Bush Administration and nothing more, not fair, not just and certainly not what Libby deserved.
Scooter Libby was Nifonged.
Pardon him and remove this travesty of justice.
Odds on, Bush does not pardon Libby. Bush is way too lazy to get “involved.” And, he already gave his “speech.” That “justice was served.” In DC. Where most people look there; and see something “else.”
Of course, the bigger question is WHY DIDN’T LIBBY FRY BUSH? He had the cards. He had a willing cheater in Fitzgerald. All he had to do was “turn.” And, he did not.
So, Libby is, in fact, a hard working hero. Who is paying the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Sort’a the same boat for our military guys in Irak, at this point.)
That Bush is a dud? Seems to come as a surprise, here.
Still capable of innanities and mischief? Sure. What’s this bullshit that Putin is a “fwend.” The Saud’s aren’t our “fwends,” either.
And, given the mood of the public, it’s only a question to see which of the 8 candidates turns fast enough. Mitt Romney? Nope. He’s from Massa2shits. Ain’t gonna make it, nationally.
McCain’s? All burned up. Guiliani? Seems a bit to slow catch on that he hasn’t maneuvered far enough away from Bush. Besides. He can’t. Do you know why? 9/11 “coupled” Guiliani TO Bush. To “grow and notice” that Americans aren’t happy with dictators? Sure puts Guiliani in a worse light, no?
Every day that passes, Fred’s chances get better. And, he’s arleady said he’d pardon Libby.
So, yes. You can see how Fred is campaigning in ways that are very different.
As to Libby? Jails are becoming common place. I can’t even figure out why Paris Hilton is in one; except that’s how judges get their names in the paper. Sad. But judges are people who have law credentials. It’s like opening up the door to a whore house and then getting surprised that the dames do the strangest stuff for money.
Libby going to jail, in a way, stands in for the frustrations most Americans are feeling. And, it will take time to figure out why a bum like Bush got the nod. It seems the Bush’s know all about primary politics. Nodding is something they take for granted.
Comuppance, however, happens later. In the history books.
Precisely what part of an investigation did Libby obstruct, given that he knew before hand who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to Bob Novak?
Capt,n Ed your comments are dead on. You are peerless as far as I’m concerned. Thanks for your understanding of the rule of law and it’s humanly related inequities. Measured reason, maybe some of your readers should try it some time.
Capt Ed Wrote:
‘But that’s not the same thing as saying that he should have been somehow shielded from prosecution because of the incompetence in handling the Berger case. A jury found that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice, and just like anyone else convicted of those crimes, he should be punished for them.’
Capt -this is a specious argument and not at all on point. Nobody is saying we want to live in a country where people aren’t punished for their crimes including lying to juries. The emotion in this case is about the remarkable contradictions on how a Republican is treated and how a Democrat is treated.
Sandy Berger STOLE classified federal documents, lied time and again about the incident and basically went scot-free. Of course he’s a Democrat shielded by the Democrat beureacracy that dominates ALL federal agencies including Justice and the media that is obviously all in for Democrats.
Libby was charged by a partisan Democrat prosecutor, indicted by a partisan Democrat DC Grand Jury, the judge is a partisan Democrat and the convicting DC jury was filled with Democrat partisans. Even the jury foreman was a former Democrat Party operative!
Libby was shown to have exactly four disparities of recollection with the stories of three reporters whose memories and recollections were also shown as faulty. Naturally Libby is the Republican and has apparently no natural advocates in government. And no way will Bush ever pardon him.
Again Capt – this argument isn’t about whether or not Justice messed up pne case and then got the other one right. Its about an entrenched, systematic lack of fairness for the Republican while the Democrat gets the kid gloves. Is this the kind of country YOU want to live in?
Pants Berger plans his vaca; Libby to jail – UPDATED
A good illustration in incongruity.
One man misremembers and gets a quarter-million dollar fine and thirty months. One steals and destroys classified documents and…well, he’s probably at Martha’s Vineyard or soon will be.
President B…
Please, please, please!
Fitzgerald is NOT a Democrat, he’s a Republican, appointed after Ashcroft recused himself.
“If Berger got off scot-free, then blame the DoJ under George Bush and Alberto Gonzales, but it doesn’t give Libby a pass on lawbreaking.”
Oh I do — though I also blame the career DoJ prosecutors, regardless of their party affiliations.
Fitzgerald’s task was to find who leaked Plame’s name. Early on he discovered it was Armitage, so why continue with the inquiry.
I also think the Henry Cisneros investigation was a bit over much. Yes, he did lie to the FBI, but, from what I understand, it was only about the amount of money he was paying his exmistress.
Now, I do not think people should be able to get away with crimes, even if it is just perjury of some sort, but with limited resources what other prosecutions/investigations are not going forward?
Precisely what part of an investigation did Libby obstruct
Whether there was an effort by those in the White House to “out” Plame in retaliation for her husband’s op-ed.
We know now that Plame was in fact covert, so that crime could have happened. And Fitzgerald never exonerated the White House of the charge, but instead said Libby’s obstruction clouded his vision to the point that he could not build a strong enough for that charge.
I’m still wondering why no one in the press corps has not asked Bush or Snow why Rove is still working at the White House since he clearly broke his confidentiality agreement and since Bush said any leakers would be dealt with severely.
Rove was one of the leakers. What severe action has been taken?
Early on he discovered it was Armitage, so why continue with the inquiry.
He discovered it was Armitage, Rove and Libby who leaked Plame’s name to different members of the media. Novak heard from both Armitage and Rove that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent.
He continued with the inquiry because it’s a crime to knowingly out a covert CIA agent. These guys did out a covert CIA agent, he just had to figure out the knowingly part. Was there an effort to “out” Plame in retaliation for Wilson’s op-ed.
As I understand it, that’s the part of the investigation that Libby’s perjury obstructed.
Okokolo – Actually Fitzgerald is registered as an ‘Independent’ in New York and later with ‘no affiliation’ in Chicago. His actions speak loudly though as a fierce partisan.
Actually Fitzgerald is registered as an ‘Independent’ in New York and later with ‘no affiliation’ in Chicago.
I think personally, he’s a Republican, but as a prosecutor he’s, well, a prosecutor. I was at a debate in Chicago in which he staunchly defended the Patriot Act.
Prior to the Plame investigation, if one had to guess, they would without a doubt say he was a Republican rather than a Democrat.
I find it funny that just because he prosecuted a case against people in the administration that he’s now a “fierce partisan” for the democrats.
Tom Shipley – Your remarks are a complete mischaracterization of the entire affair. Even though Plame claims she was covert and the CIA sort of backs her on the assertion she was not covert under the statute protecting operatives (NOCs). The original causus beli for the investigation started at State Department with Armitage who IS acknowledged to be THE leaker by Bob Woodward, Novak and Armitage himself. Since he is the acknowledged primary leaker (before anyone else knew about Plame) then why wasn’t he prosecuted and charged with a crime by Fitzgerald? Because Plame did NOT fall under the statute covering NOCs and no crime was committed. That should have been the end of the story and the end of Fitzgerald’s investigation. BUT he wanted to take down as much of the administration as possible just as he did Gov. Ryan in Chicago.
1. Valerie Plame was not covert.
Covert agents do not:
a. fly abroad under their own name;
b. drive through the front gate at Langley;
c. have their photograph published in Vanity Fair;
d. appear in Who’s Who;
e. get introduced by their spouse as a CIA employee.
2. The “perjury ” consisted solely of having recollections which differed from those of journalists.
3. Richard Armitage outed Plame. He was not indicted.
4. The relevant statute delineates the meaning of covert. The CIA has been unable to verify Plame’s status by the expedient of consulting her pension records. Pension records show where a person was stationed, by quarter.
5. The CIA has an unenviable reputation for getting the facts wrong in other situations.
6. This was a fishing expedition from the beginning. Fitzgerald had to find something to indict someone for, so he worked his tail off to get someone to say something around which to build a case.
7. This was, in fact, vengeance for the impeachment of President Clinton.
8. Watch closely. President Bush will pardon William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, probably next week, from all crimes he committed or may have committed. This will be in the name of compassion. And it will be done to secure the votes of Blacks for Republicans.
9. Scooter Libby will never be pardoned. Bush promised hard time to the leaker.
I find it funny that just because he prosecuted a case against people in the administration that he’s now a “fierce partisan” for the democrats.
Posted by: Tom Shipley at June 5, 2007 1:47 PM
—————————
Par for the course for these conservatives, Tom.
Don’t you know? The buck stops… somewhere over there!
So the president lies during his state of the union. Wilson reveals his lie. The president and the VP exact revenge including outing a covert CIA agent who’s team is working on some heavy anti-terrorism stuff and scooter Libby lies about it blocking further forthcoming evidence of our treasonous administration from coming out. And many of you are defending that?
And you still call yourselves Americans? Putting party before country is bad enough but putting lies and a corupt party that has lead us to disaster before your country is horrible..have you no shame?
Well I sure hope Jefferson gets the book thrown at him because I won’t defend him and I sure don’t want my party to be a part of his corruption. I can’t always make my leaders do the right thing but I sure as heck can not go down in the muck with them…that would be dispicable.
Oh and this;
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/06/june_9_2003_the.html
Posted by: Jon Prichard at June 5, 2007 1:50 PM
Posted by: mathman at June 5, 2007 1:51 PM
————————————
Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak
WASHINGTON – An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.
[…]
The unclassified summary of Plame’s employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, “Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”
[…]
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”
Feel free to pay attention to the facts in the case at any time.
1. Valerie Plame was not covert.
Posted by: mathman at June 5, 2007 1:51 PM
————————-
Feel free to educate yourself on the facts of the case at any time.
Thanks.
Your remarks are a complete mischaracterization of the entire affair. Even though Plame claims she was covert and the CIA sort of backs her on the assertion she was not covert under the statute protecting operatives (NOCs).
It is absolutely amazing how far some people will go to rationalize their false beliefs. CIA told Fitzgerald that Plame was:
A) Covert at the time of the leak.
B) That they were taking steps to conceal her employment with the CIA.
C) She traveled overseas with under her own name and under a false name, and that she traveled overseas with NOC.
She worked under NOC cover for the CIA. The most dangerous kind of the cover, it should be noted.
Remember, the CIA is also group that requested this investigation.
a. fly abroad under their own name
According to the CIA they do. Where do you get your information?
b. drive through the front gate at Langley;
According to the CIA they do. Where do you get your information?
c. have their photograph published in Vanity Fair
This occured after she was outed.
d. appear in Who’s Who
Why not? If there’s prominant lawyer who is also secretly working for the CIA, he’s forbbiden to have his name put in a Who’s Who book? Is this CIA policy? Again, where do you get your information?
e. get introduced by their spouse as a CIA employee.
Exactly when did this happen?
mathman and jon,
Plame covert status is not and was not determined by YOU or other Pundits. It was determined by the CIA.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18924679/
You guys suffer so severely from cognitive dissonance it sad to see you convince yourself of your own lies to protect your reality averse views. Wake up and join the real world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Tom Shipley wrote: ‘I think personally, he’s a Republican, but as a prosecutor he’s, well, a prosecutor. I was at a debate in Chicago in which he staunchly defended the Patriot Act.’
Maybe you’re right about his personal politics but I highly doubt it given his life story and experience as a prosecutor both in New York and Chicago. Its a guess though either way. One thing you are right about…he is a prosecutor and acts like one. Under normal circumstances that’s a good quality when there are checks and balances but we need to remember Fitzgerald was given a complete bill of authority OUTSIDE the purview or oversight of the Justice Department (actually given the powers of the US Attorney General). That alone is unconstitutional and grossly unfair.
I have a hard time believing that ‘the hardworking son of an Irish doorman from New York’ (as the Washington Post so fawningly describes him) is a Republican in his personal politics. I Could be wrong though. But thinlk about it – he was recommended by Mary Jo White for goodness sakes!
1. Fitzgerald was picked for the Northern District of Illinois by then Illinois Senator Fitzgerald (no relation), where he still is US Attorney. Senator Fitzgerald was a “maverick” one term RNO who went out of his way to irritate Republicans.
2. It has never been established that Plame was “covert.” Indeed , Judge Walton is on record that he didn’t know if she was.
3. I have never been able to figure out a motive for Libby’s supposed lying.
4. Libby’s prosecution will not encourage others to be more straightforward in future cases. From now on, the default answer to a prosecutor or the FBI will be “I don’t remember.” Apparently, Scooter did not follow Martha’s case very closely.
3. Richard Armitage outed Plame. He was not indicted.
Mathman,
Open your eyes for a moment, please.
Armitage was not indicted because Fitzgerald could not prove that these three men purposefully outed Plame, in part because of Libby’s obstruction…
Libby was indicted because he lied to the prosecutor during the investigation. As Fitzgerald put it, it’s the equivalent of someone throwing dirt in an ump’s eyes while a play at the plate happens. That’s why he’s serving 30 months.
–Posted by: THE COUNT at June 5, 2007 2:08 PM
2. It has never been established that Plame was “covert.”
————————-
Wrong. (see Posted by: muirgeo at June 5, 2007 2:05 PM)
Try again.
3. I have never been able to figure out a motive for Libby’s supposed lying.
————————
Allow me to lend you some assistance: he was covering for his criminal Vice President.
From now on, the default answer to a prosecutor or the FBI will be “I don’t remember.”
————————-
Thank you for that, Albertorture Gonzales!
Jon, I worked at a law school in Chicago while Fitzgerald was there. As I recall, he was definitely thought of as more a Republican than Democrat.
As someone just pointed out, he was appointed by a Republican. Personally, I don’t think he let’s politics enter his mind when he’s working and I think it’s ridiculous to think he was acting in a partisan manner during this particular investigation considering:
A) He had a reputation of not having politics involved in his investigations (ie… going after people of both parties with equal effort).
B) He had been more associated with Republicans than Dems prior to the Plame case.
Shipley Wrote: ‘Armitage was not indicted because Fitzgerald could not prove that these three men purposefully outed Plame, in part because of Libby’s obstruction…’
That’s patently rediculous! Armitage ‘outed’ Plame to Bob Woodward weeks before Libby even entered the picture. As a matter of prosecuting Armitage for a crime Fitzgerald had all the evidence necessary to prove Armitage’s guilt BEFORE Libby was ever interviewed by investigators.
Armitage wasn’t indicted because the elements of a crime did not exist and this was known by Fitzgerald in the FIRST WEEK of his investigation.
These elements were necessary:
Plame may have been ‘covert’ but not a covert NOC under the statute covering this issue.
The NOC must be in operations overseas during the previous five years (to the outing). Plame wasn’t a NOC, she was a manager of NOCs (apparently) and managers are expressly removed from the language of the statute.
The leakers must KNOW the NOC’s status. There is absolutely no evidence ANY Bush admin officials knew her status one way or the other.
This isn’t my argument. This is the one posed by Victoria Toensing, the lawyer who wrote the statute in question. That’s HER opinion about the Plame affair.
So muirgeo:
The fact is that British intelligence did indeed claim that yellowcake uranium was Saddam’s goal. The letter in question may have turned out to be a fake, but other intelligence completely supported the President’s assertions about Saddam. Bush then prematurely apologized for his mistake, which was not a mistake (and of course, he never apologizes). And the CIA concluded from Wilson’s own work the same. But Wilson lied about his lie and the 911 commission acknowledged as much. Wilson is the liar, the revealer of his wife’s identity, the conniver. But you hate Bush too much to think clearly. Sorry for all of us that a sickness is embedded so deeply in the American body politic.
The lesson for us all is this …
In front of a grand jury, “I don’t recall” is often the best answer.
Of course normally a grand jury is convened “after” the State believes a crime occured. In this case the “State”, Fitz has never seen any evidence of a crime and of course Armitrage would have been the focus of that investigation, not Cheney. So why was ANYONE asking Libby questions that he could perjure himself while answering when no crime was alleged.
Fishing expedition plain and simple …
Pardon him TODAY President Bush …
Posted by Ed Morrissey at June 5, 2007 11:06 AM
——————————-
I was hoping you could help me to reconcile this statement:
“and just like anyone else convicted of those crimes, he should be punished for them.”
with this statement:
I would have no problem if George Bush chose to pardon Libby, and I think it’s appropriate in this case…
He should be punished?
Or…
He should be pardoned, thus avoiding being punished?
Color me confounded…
That’s patently rediculous! Armitage ‘outed’ Plame to Bob Woodward weeks before Libby even entered the picture.
Jon,
I’m not exactly sure of the timeline, but if Armitage was first, it doesn’t matter. The directive was given by Cheney that Plame was “fair game.” After that occurred, we know that Armitage, Rove and Libby all spoke to the press and said that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.
ALL THREE LEAKED HER NAME. ALL THREE “OUTED” HER.
As a matter of prosecuting Armitage for a crime Fitzgerald had all the evidence necessary to prove Armitage’s guilt BEFORE Libby was ever interviewed by investigators.
Uh, no Jon, he didn’t. As I’ve said in one of my prior posts in this thread, Fitzgerald needed to determine whether or not Armitage, Rove and Libby leaked Plame’s status as a CIA agent in an effort to “out” her.
He said himself during the press conference announcing Libby’s indictment that Libby’s obstruction of justice clouded is vision of whether this crime took place (that’s when he made the ump comparison).
So when he found out Armitage leaked to Woodward, he absolutely did not have enough evidence to prosecute Armitage of knowingly outing a covert CIA agent.
Tom S.,
First of all, when did Cheney ever say that plame was “fair game” and what proof do you have that he said that. I don’t recall ever hearing that in the trial. Even if he did say that, Plame was not covert. As was said above:
Secondly, as has been said before; Libby’s conviction rests on 1) the credibility of Tim Russert, and the faulty memories if ither reporters involved in the investigation.
Clarice Feldman weighed in prior to the sentencing of Libby with far more compelling evidence of Fitzgerald’s malfeasance of justice in the trial and in his sentencing recommendations than those remarks made here by Fitzgerald’s apologists.
The commenters who see a justification for allowing Libby to be the fall guy in a conflated charge continue to accept the faulty media narrative. They falsely believe that Plame was protected as covert under Intelligence Identities Protection Act , that national security was jeopardized with the revelation of Plame’s name, that Cheney and Rove were behind some nefarious plot, and that when a beleaguered government official mis-remembers details that conflict with the memories of journalists (whose own accounts conflict), the government official is lying.
In spite of the cautions of Judge Walton that the issue in the courtroom was not Plame’s status, the jury (hardly one of peers) expected to watch the toppling of Rove and Cheney, as well. Through innuendo in his trial summation and in his pre-sentencing remarks, Fitzgerald has misdirected both the jury and the judge.
Here are a few points Feldman makes:
“In any event, there is more wrong with the Prosecutor’s sentencing filings than can be fully dealt with here. Leaving aside the warrantless claims of wrongdoing by the Vice President and the demand for a higher sentence on the crackpot notion that had Libby not lied, the government could have proven a master plot by Cheney, the Fitzgerald fantasy of a master Cheney plot is, in fact, preposterous on its face. Certainly if Armitage and Rove and Harlow were puppets in Cheney’s hands, we’d have some evidence of this which had not sprung full blown from Fitzgerald’s fevered brow. What is not a fantasy is that Wilson’s story as reported by Nick Kristof and others was a fabrication, and that Plame has given three inconsistent sworn versions of her role in the Mission .
“Equally fact-free is the claim in these papers that Plame was “covert” within the meaning of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA). One would have thought that a good investigator would have made an effort to find out whether this was the case at the beginning, not at the sentencing, where Fitzgerald is seeking an upward revision of the sentence claiming now that Plame is “covert”, in circumstances shocking to anyone with a notion of due process.
“At trial, the Prosecutor denied the defendant access to classified records about Plame’s status, saying her status was irrelevant because he was charging no violation of that law. The parties were thereafter barred from mentioning it, though Fitzgerald broke that when he made his hyperbolic “cloud on the vice president” rebuttal closing to the jury-an act which breached the court’s rule and put before the jury prejudicial matters never introduced into evidence and in a time and manner precluding a response.”
Libby was FitzFonged. The lesson to be learned by anyone in responsible government positions is not to talk to reporters and “not remember'” when asked to testify.
Jon and Jim C:
Jon,
This is according to Fitzgerald’s summary of the case… basically, what the CIA told him:
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”
So, while she was assigned at Langley, she was covert and did travel overseas as an NOC agent.
> A jury found that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice, and just like anyone else convicted of those crimes, he should be punished for them.
BUT
>I would have no problem if George Bush chose to pardon Libby…
This makes no sense. Ed has not spent enough time thinking out his position on this subject; hence it’s a confused worthless summary.
Final paragraphs should not contain, or present, conflicting observations that wind up undermining an authors final thoughts about a story.
Oh please… more of the Bush lied Bullshit? This has been proven false time and time again. They’ve even had “bipartisan” commissions look into whether or not Bush lied in the SOTU address. Even they concluded that he didn’t lie. Muirego, I think it’s time that you all on the left find another accusation because the facts just don’t bear this one out.
Jim C
I would love to see someone add Libby’s name to the big Amnesty bill.
If we’re ready to forgive and forget the systematic law breaking by more than 12 million immigrants can’t we find room to forgive and forget the actions of Libby.
Laura at 3:06 hit it precisely.
Or as Martin Luther King put it, “It doesn’t matter whether white people are punished for their crimes or not. Black folks should obey the government unthinkingly.”
Remember, Captain, if you are ever unjustly persecuted by the government, just quietly submit, like a good..whatever. We know you certainly wouldn’t want our help.
Tom,
I enjoy your reasoned debate but it seems you’ve bought into the Huffington Post talking points about this case. Our discussion starts from Capt. Ed posting that Libby ‘got what he deserved.’ A statement with which I vehemently disagree. The emotion I have invested in this case isn’t about Scooter Libby. I don’t know him personally and aside from the humanity of it all I don’t care. For me this isn’t about the Republican Party either.
We need to ask this basic question: After all the treason, backstabbing and intrigue of this affair why is a third-tier functionary like Libby the only one indicted or charged and convicted? The answer to that question should scare both you and me…and every American really.
How did this all start? Here’s the basic abridged version…
Joe Wilson is sent by the CIA under recomendation from his wife to investigate whether Saddam Hussein and Iraq had INQUIRED about purchasing yellow-cake uranium from NIGER.
Wilson goes on the mission, hangs around for a couple of weeks and files a report with the CIA.
Bush uses the fateful 16 words in the State of the Union Address about Iraq seeking enriched uranium from AFRICA.
Joe Wilson writes an OP/Ed in the New York Times claiming that Iraq did no such thing and Bush is a liar.
Everybody goes ballistic.
Reporters start asking questions – Woodward first, he asked Armitage why Joe Wilson was sent on a mission he was unqualified for. Armitage said his wife ‘works at the CIA’ and has an ‘axe to grind.’ Other reporters ask too. Novak asks Armitage FIRST and tries to get confirmation from Libby who say’s ‘yeah, I heard that too.’
At this point Tenant and the CIA are embarrassed, not because the info about Iraq was wrong but because its seen the CIA sent out a ‘cover man’ to set up the Bush Admin. And so the next thing you know this isn’t about Iraq and yellow-cake anymore its all about who outed Plame.
The plain fact is Joe Wilson, her own husband outed her in conversations with reporters (Cooper and Miller) who dined at breakfast with BOTH Joe and Valerie. As it turns out Wilson lied in his OP/Ed in the NYT as he testified to Congress. There WAS evidence Iraq sought yellow-cake from Niger.
Fitzgerald may not have had partisan motives to go after the Bush Administration but he was given unconstitutional powers to, in effect, save the CIA’s butt, an agency that basically provided the ‘Plame story’ to cover Tenant’s mis-handling of the intelligence (and indeed the whole CIA).
Early on Fitzgerald found no ‘there’ there so he got what he could, which wasn’t much really in the context of the whole thing. Now Tom, you’re actually telling us that after all this and millions spent on an investigation with the unfettered powers of the Attorney General that the small and minor misrecollections (if they even rise to THAT level) of a third tier functionary like Libby are the reason Fitzgerald had ‘sand thrown in his face’?!!
It doesn’t stand to reason even if Fitz says so just to save HIS face.
Jon,
Exactly how is using Fitzgerald’s summary of what the CIA told him a “Huffington Post” talking point?
How can you dismiss that like that?
It’s the strongest evidence any on here has posted as to whether Plame was covert or not. And it says Plame was covert.
And Jon, to your claim that Wilson told Miller and Cooper that his wife worked for the CIA… do you have anything to back that up?
Tom Wrote:
This is according to Fitzgerald’s summary of the case… basically, what the CIA told him:
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”
First of all Tom, THAT description doesn’t make her a covered NOC under the statute. Secondly none of the supposed leakers could possibly have known THIS version of her status.
If Fitz had a case he would have indicted Armitage irrespective of Libby (or anything Libby could POSSIBLY have said). It didn’t matter if Armitage ‘outed’ Plame as part of some grand Cheney conspiracy or just because he’s a doofus. All that nonesense is just cover for Fitzgerald not ‘getting his man.’
And Jon…
After all the treason, backstabbing and intrigue of this affair why is a third-tier functionary like Libby the only one indicted or charged and convicted?
The answer is simple. Plame was a covert agent who during her time assigned to Langley took trips overseas as an NOC agent. She was covert.
So, when Armitage, Libby and Rove told reporters that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent and those reporters published that information, Valerie Plame was “outed” as a CIA agent.
Now, it’s against the law to purposefully out a covert agent. While Fitzgerald was investigating whether or not this crime occurred, the overwhelming evidence showed that Libby was lying to him. He was indicted and a jury agreed that Libby committed perjury (a notoriously hard crime to prove).
That’s it. That’s how it happened.
Tom,
It’s YOUR interpretation of Fitz summary that evokes shades of Huffington Post, not his worthless self-serving drivel. And again, merely being ‘covert’ is not grounds for a crime of outing a NOC under the statute. And once again, don’t refer to my arguments, seek the counsel of Victoria Toensing, the lawyer who wrote the statute.
And Tom,
I miswrote about the reporters at breakfast with the Plame/Wilsons. It was Andrea Mitchel and Cooper, not Miller. This came out in direct testimony at trial. The breakfast meeting occurred BEFORE reporter’s conversations with Libby.
It didn’t matter if Armitage ‘outed’ Plame as part of some grand Cheney conspiracy or just because he’s a doofus.
Yes it does. If Armitage named Plame as a CIA agent, not knowing whether she was covert or not, it’s not a crime. You have to know she’s a covert agent and know that your actions will be exposing her as such.
If Cheney and Rove decided to “out” Plame to hit back at Wilson, knowing she was a covert agent, then they and whoever else knew what they knew (Armitage and Libby) would be guilty of this crime.
If they didn’t know, then they are guilty of breaking their confidentiality agreement. Either way, they outed a CIA agent who risked her life for this country in order to track “loose nukes.” Either way, it’s f*cking shameful what they did.
First of all Tom, THAT description doesn’t make her a covered NOC under the statute. Secondly none of the supposed leakers could possibly have known THIS version of her status.
Jon,
Here is text from the statute. All I see is that it references “covert” agents. I don’t see where it goes into specifics of “kinds” of covert agents. Plame’s status fits this definition. If you can see anywhere else in there that says it doesn’t, please point it out.
Sec. 421. Protection of identities of certain United States
undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and
sources
(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to
classified information that identifies covert agent
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any
information identifying such covert agent to any individual not
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the
United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined
not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert
agents as result of having access to classified information
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified
information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally
discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any
individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing
that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that
the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert
agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined
not more than $25,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of
activities intended to identify and expose covert agents
Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to
identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such
activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of
the United States, discloses any information that identifies an
individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive
classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so
identifies such individual and that the United States is taking
affirmative measures to conceal such individual’s classified
intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more
than $15,000 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html
Here’s what Mitchell had to say:
IMUS: Apparently on October 3, 2003, you said it was “widely known” that Joe Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA.
MITCHELL: Well, that was out of context.
IMUS: Oh, it was?
MITCHELL: It was out of context.
IMUS: Isn’t that always the case?
MITCHELL: Don’t you hate it when that happens? The fact is that I did not know – did not know before – did not know before the Novak column. And it was very clear because I had interviewed Joe Wilson several times, including on “Meet the Press.”
And in none of those interviews did any of this come up, on or off camera – I have to tell you. The fact is what I was trying to express was that it was widely known that there was an envoy that I was tasking my producers and my researchers and myself to find out who was this secret envoy.
I did not know. We only knew because of an article in the Washington Post by Walter Pincus, and it was followed by Nicholas Kristof, that someone had known in that period.
IMUS: So you didn’t say it was “widely known” that his wife worked at the CIA?
MITCHELL: I – I – I said it was widely known that an envoy had gone – let me try to find the quote. But the fact is what I was trying to say in the rest of that sentence – I said we did not know who the envoy was until the Novak column.
IMUS: Did you mention that Wilson or his wife worked at the CIA?
MITCHELL: Yes.
IMUS: Did you mention . . .
MITCHELL: It was in a long interview on CNBC.
IMUS: No, I understand that. But at any point, in any context, did you say that it was either widely known, not known, or whether it was speculated that his wife worked at the CIA.
MITCHELL: I said that it was widely known that – here’s the exact quote – I said that it was widely known that Wilson was an envoy and that his wife worked at the CIA. But I was talking about . . .
IMUS: OK, so you did say that. It took me a minute to get that out of you.
MITCHELL: No, I was talking about after the Novak column. And that was not clear. I may have misspoken in October 2003 in that interview.
As far as cooper, I couldn’t find anything where he said Wilson told him that his wife worked for the CIA. Have anything to back that claim up?
Tom,
Plame wasn’t ‘covered’ under articles b and c. Specifically the Agency wasn’t ‘taking affirmative measures to protect an agent serving in a foreign intelligence capacity’. They were reclassifying her because she was already outed as a foreign agent in the 90s by Aldrich Ames.
BIGGER POINT: None of the so-called ‘outers’ were doing so with ‘reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States’. If anything they would have thought they were protecting American interests and are probably covered themselves by Whistleblower protections.
Has anyone ever seen Tom Shipley and Joe Wilson in the same place at the same time?
Tom,
An Imus interview is hardly dispositive and certainly not under oath. Please remember also that the trial judge would not allow Libby’s defense to call Andrea Mitchell at trial AS PUNISHMENT for Libby deciding not to testify in his own defense. (Yes that will be an issue for appeal while Libby rots in prison for committing no crime). You’ll need to go to the trial transcripts for the breakfast testimony re: Cooper and Mitchell. I must take exception to your saying what these folks did was shameful. Maybe so from your perspective but from mine I see what Plame and her husband lying Joe Wilson did was both shameful and treasonous. I just can’t fathom why you hold these people in such high regard.
Putting aside my disagreement with the supposed overwhelming tide of evidence in the Libby case I find my confidence in the Justice Department at an all time low. Berger’s transgression and supposed punishment is a stinging slap in the face of the whole nation. I have sat on courts martial where a senior NCO though negligence potentially compromised material of a lower security level than Berger intentionally stole/destroyed/exposed. The individual in question was reduced to E1, forfeited all pay and allowanced, performed hard labor for 90 days and was given a bad conduct discharge. This was for negligence, not theft.
Whether Libby’s punishment was fair is not the problem. The apparent political favoritism being displayed by the DOJ is a very severe problem. The rest of you should also be concerned. If it’s this blatant for the “players” just what sort of fairness can you people in fly over country expect from these unelected Princes of the Potomac?
“Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”
“The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.”
Uh, doesn’t that qualify her for B anc C.
And she for sure qualifies under A. Do you have to qualify for all three or just 1? Either way, it looks like she fits the definition. The CIA certainly thinks so considering they asked for this investigation.
I hold Plame in high regard because she served our country, risking her life going overseas with NOC cover to learn more about the threat that loose nukes pose to our nation.
I hold those in the White House in lesser regard because they outed this woman to the press. Regardless of whether she is covered by the statute (which I think she was, so does the CIA, so does Fitzgerald), she was serving our nation as a covert agent who used an NOC cover. These guys either intentionally or unintentionally blew that cover in a political attack.
You’ll need to go to the trial transcripts for the breakfast testimony re: Cooper and Mitchell.
Sorry, Jon, you’re gonna have to back up your own claim. I think I’ve done my part in backing up mine. Time to step up to the plate and not just throw claims out there without backing them up.
Capt Ed.,
I am saddened and dissapointed by your offensive remarks made as ‘clarifying your position.’ You didn’t follow the trial closely, if you had you would have a clear understanding about numerous large and small miscarriages of justice that occured throughout the trial amounting to a mountain of injustice relating to Scooter Libby.
Your original post titled ‘A Tale of Two Prosecutions’ was quite off the mark. The only similarity is that they have news about them on the same day. Whereas the Jefferson item is about a wholly corrupt politician who hid money in his freezer the Libby trial is about a very decent human being who got caught up in some much wider problems. It does sadden me that you so easily dismiss Libby’s travails as so much water under the bridge and he WAS convicted by a jury after all. Well, that’s our justice system, right?
But this truly made me mad as you wrote:
If you support the rule of law, then this sentencing was a foregone conclusion.
Thanks for the arrogant dismissiveness. I support the rule of law, fully, but not without question. I highly and steadfastly disagree this sentencing was a foregone conclusion. If you had followed the trial at all you would understand that the evidence against Libby was so scant as to merit even an indictment. And yet you tell us he ‘got what he deserved’ now the rest of you shut up.
You did follow the Duke LAX trial enough to know the defendants were getting railroaded and believed in their innocence. But they too were indicted and if the State hadn’t intervened through the lies and over reach by the prosecutor, a jury would have been chosen, the boys would have been convicted (most likely given the local atmosphere) and the fair trial would have been followed by a swift hanging.
Would you have said in that context, ‘They were convicted by a jury, they can appeal. If the decision was wrong it will get overturned (yeah right). I have to respect the rule of law.’
What sorts of miscarriages of justice are abhorent enough for you to question the rule of law in a particular case?
Are you telling us, your loyal readership, that we must respect every jury decision unquestionably or are you merely tired of tcriticism and just want everyone to shut up and quit calling you on your lack of thought on this issue and arrogant dissmissive tone?
Well Tom, you haven’t backed up any of your claims actually. You have expressed your opinions cogently though and I appreciate that. But you see I think most of this is about opinion and not legal standards. That’s what frightens me because anyone can get caught up in something larger than themselves under a system based on sentiments and opinion.
You hold Plame/Wilson in high regard because you say they (or at least she) served their country. Of course that’s admirable. The problem is its entirely possible that Plame and Wilson conspired to create a political hit job or attack against the Bush Administration in a time of war. But that’s my opinion and the facts for either argument are shadowy at best.
Scooter Libby was a tireless worker for the American cause. Henry Kissinger said Libby’s work helped to win the Cold War. That is certainly admirable too and I hold him in high regard for his service to this nation.
The thing is I absolutely, unequivocally believe he is innocent of the charges he was convicted on as well as the innuendo charges you and others want to put on his shoulders. And that’s my opinion which I hope you can respect as I do yours.
Tom,
The statute says that the US has to be taking affirmative actions to conceal the Identity of the covert agent… how is appearing in Vanity Fair, or going to work at langley, or her husband Identifying her as a CIA employee taking affirmative action to conceal her identity? Once again (I don’t know how many times we have to keep saying this)… Plame WAS NOT a covert agent under the statute, otherwise Fitz would have had to charge Armitage. Because she wasn’t a covwert agent under the statute there was no crime there. Fitz had to “get” someone to justify his several months long witch hunt so he popped Libby on perjury — on pretty shaky grounds I might add.
Jim C
Jon,
It doesn’t matter what you believe — the jury found him guilty. Unless you want to replace the justice system with pollsters, this is what you get. The jury heard all the evidence, including Libby’s defense, and found him guilty. Why is that so hard for you to accept? Were you in that courtroom every day? I’m not the one being arrogant here.
If he’s been railroaded, he’ll get it reversed on appeal. If he committed perjury and obstruction of justice, it makes no difference whether he’s otherwise a great guy. Duke Cunningham was a war hero who committed felonies by being a corrupt politician. I don’t think he should get let off the hook either.
Actually, to be honest Jon, I can’t respect your opinion. Here is why.
I said Plame was covert. I back up that claim with filings by Fitzgerald saying the CIA said:
A) Plame was covert.
B) They were actively trying to conceal her role with the CIA.
C) She worked overseas as an agent with NOC cover when she worked at Langley (Jim C, are you listening?).
THIS IS NOT OPINION, BUT FACT.
You then claimed that she was not covert under the statute Fitz was looking to indict under. I produced that satute. You did not challange that she fit one criteria, but challanged she didn’t fit the second two. I then quoted Fitzgerald’s finding which seem to show she did fit the other two. To this you didn’t respond.
You also did not provide one bit of evidence to back up any of your claims. So, to be honest, I cannot respect your opinion.
Is “Scooter” A Cool Prison Nickname?
So, the verdict’s been rendered. 30 months in prison for Scooter Libby. The appeal is likely to be swift, and not successful. The verdict wasn’t really in much doubt. You can read the indictment here.
Already, there is plenty of Repu…
Jon, you are absolutely right. There was not enough evidence here to even indict, much less convict.
This jury was absolutely dying to bring a guilty verdict. I believe at one point they asked if the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby lied. What does that tell you?
This was a political hanging, and we should all be scared. And the “Captain” needs to learn the difference between “he lied” and “he was convicted of lying”, To say he got what he deserved is incredibly irresponsible.
And to bring the analogy with the Duke case further, I believe all of you know that if this had been a few decades ago, when we did not have DNA, those boys would have been convicted and sentenced to who knows what for their “crime”.
Would you have said then, Captain, that they “got what they deserved”?
Ed seems unwilling by now to keep defending Scooter Libby, just as he’s been unwilling to support Alberto Gonzales. This would seem commendable if it weren’t pretty clearly aimed at diverting blame from the likes of Cheney, Rove, and Bush.
Neither Libby nor Gonzales were innocent scapegoats, but it’s not any more plausible to see them as rogue actors. Does anyone who recognizes that Libby was lying to the grand jury really doubt the purpose of his lies?
Ed’s position on pardoning Libby also remains incoherent, despite his efforts to work it out. If you think there are “extenuating circumstances that warrant consideration of a pardon,” then why on earth shouldn’t they have warranted acquittal by a jury? I’d love to hear exactly what Ed thinks these circumstances are.
If you’re willing to concede that Libby did the crime, and that his sentence is an appropriate one, then what follows from that is that he should do the time. Yes, Bush has the power to spare him from having to do so. But how can the exercise of this power be legitimate if there’s no miscarriage of justice to be corrected?
If there’s one thing Bush has actually been consistent about — as a governor and as president — it’s the idea that the pardoning power should be used sparingly and that the regular workings of justice should be allowed to take their course. He’s referred to the formal process by which pardons are applied for and considered. What does it say about him if he turns around, bumps Libby to the head of the line, and erases a legitimate verdict?
Frankly, it seems that Ed anticipates a pardon and wants to be able to keep supporting the White House without having to stoop to recite tired arguments like Jon Prichard’s. Problem is, you can’t have it both ways.
Capt – Your self-serving argument rings hollow. You posted that Libby ‘got what he deserved.’ I retort that he didn’t get the fairness every American deserves. You clearly didn’t follow the trial (by your own admission) so how can you possibly have any understanding about what Libby deserved?
So the jury heard all the evidence did they? How would you know? Do you have any understanding of the many capricious rulings made by the judge throughout the trial. Do you know that Fitz closing argument was a well spoken, thoroughly researched incriminating indictment…against Cheney?
You say ‘if he was railroaded he’ll get it reversed on appeal.’ What planet are you from? In our system of justice the appelate process for criminal convictions is woefully in disrepair. We need reform in this area (but that’s my belief).
There’s no reason to introduce the straw man of Duke Cunningham into this debate. He’s not only convicted but an admitted corrupt felon. He recieved a fair trial and said so himself. I mentioned Libby’s service vis-a-vis Plame’s service not to say Libby should never get convicted and sentenced for a crime he is guilty of. Guilt being the operative term.
Ed, I did follow the trial closely and read all the evidence the jury got. There wasn’t much real evidence, just snippets of conversations with reporters as contrasted with 8 straight hours of Libby’s Grand Jury testimony. I submit any of us would misremember, misspeak, have different recollections of conversations from months prior through that kind of process.
There is no reason to scrap the jury system Ed but neither can we just stand passively by when good people bear the brunt of endemic corruption of a good system.
You ask why I can’t accept this. I can’t accept injustice where I see it. Im compelled to speak out against it or those who flippantly write that ‘he got what he deserved.’
Libby had the entirety of the United States criminal justice system arrayed against him, the President of the United States demanded that no members of the White House take protection under the 5th Ammendment during the inquiry.
Do you think that’s fair Ed? Do you?
And one more thing,
Even if Wilson was wrong in his op-ed (I don’t concede this, just using it as a hypothetical), what does saying his wife got him the job really do to undercut his case?
It’s a juvenile argument, perhaps even sexist… “this guy’s not qualified, his wife had to get him the gig.” And by most accounts, Plame was not the first to suggest Wilson, she only acted as an intermediary once someone else suggested him.
So, why did she need to be revealed as a CIA agent to refute what Wilson said? There was no reason. Knowing that she worked for the CIA did nothing to enlighten the public on whether Wilson was right or not in his estimation that there was not credible evidence that Iraq sent an envoy to Niger to get uranium.
There is no good reason as to why Plame should have even been talked about. As it turns out, they ended up outing a covert agent, someone who served her country under the most dangerous cover, so they could say, “heh, this guy needed his wife to get him the gig” — and even that isn’t true. Wilson was highly qualified to go in this mission.
Well, let’s see. They hired lawyers who used the justice system and got the charges thrown out. The system worked for the boys in the Duke rape case. Why didn’t it work here — because you don’t like the outcome?
Don’t even try to tell me that he couldn’t afford decent representation. You can’t seriously expect me to buy the notion that Libby is some sort of indigent whose lawyers couldn’t stand up to the federal prosecutor. He got the same opportunity anyone does in our system to have his day in court and present a defense, using attorneys outside the financial reach of 95% of the rest of the US — and a jury found him guilty.
At what point, then, are we to accept a jury verdict? One year later? Five years later? If this system is that unreliable, then why are we bothering to use it at all? Better yet, what system would you have us replace it with, since you feel it’s not reliable enough for us to rely on the verdicts of free jurors?
Oh Tom, geez, are you kidding?!!
First of all Wilson wasn’t simply ‘wrong’ in his OP/Ed as you characterize it, uh, hypthetically. He LIED in the OP/Ed. How do we know he lied? First, his OP/Ed directly contradicted his own report filed with the CIA as well as his own testimony under oath to the 9/11 Commission. His lies are well documented publicly and damn near irrefutably.
Secondly, there are two things Wilson wrote in the Op/Ed. One is that there was no evidence Iraq inquired about yellow-cake uranium from Niger and two, he claimed that Dick CHENEY SENT HIM on the mission.
This OP/Ed called into question the credibility of the President, the CIA and the nation. Everybody in the Administration was naturally quite angry and they wanted answers so they started asking questions. So did reporters. They all wanted to know why a lifelong Democrat with an obvious axe to grind against Bush would be sent on a sensitive mission…at the behest of the BUSH ADMINISTRATION.
He was sent by the CIA, not Cheney, because his wife suggested him for the job. I think that’s important.
At what point, then, are we to accept a jury verdict? One year later? Five years later? If this system is that unreliable, then why are we bothering to use it at all? Better yet, what system would you have us replace it with, since you feel it’s not reliable enough for us to rely on the verdicts of free jurors?
So, there’s no reason to have an appeals process then? Jury verdicts are magically legally unassailable? Give me a break, Ed. The appeals process is ALSO part of that “rule of law” you show respect for. Laws may be laws but they are interpreted by human beings. Human beings make mistakes.
There’s enough evidence here to warrant an appeal and to call into question the motivation to prosecute the entire case.
Scooter Libby will be a free man by January 2009.
My problem with what you have said, Captain, stems from your assertion that “he lied” and “got what he deserved” – not that he was convicted.
It’s true that he was convicted and that conviction requires a certain sentence. But that does not prove that he did lie. The evidence here was all “he said, he said”, (and the witnesses all seem to have misremembered, too) which in all but the most, shall I say, unusual of cases would bring a not guilty verdict because there is certainly reasonable doubt.
I believe Libby was railroaded, and there is not a shred of hard evidence that he lied.
So – in a nutshell, I would agree with you that his conviction calls for a sentence, but I do believe it is unfair of you to state that he lied (because you really don’t know that he did). I hope when you find yourself in a similar situation someday that people are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are unwilling to give to Libby.
,
Gosh Ed, that’s just LAME! Is someone ghost writing for you on your blog? Do you have any idea the powers that were vested in Fitzgerald for this investigation and trial? Truly, its Nifong times a thousand. Nifong was a local county prosecutor who jacked the system to his advantage. Through a modern-day legal miracle he got slapped down by the State Attorney General. In that case the system barely worked but that was extraordinary.
Fitzgerald was vested with unprecedented legal powers ABOVE the United States Attorney General, who recused himself in the matter. What’s more, the Special Prosecutor designation COULD NOT BE RESCINDED by the Justice Department or any controlling legal authority.
Ed, do you really stand by the remark that Libby got what he deserved? Think about it as an objective average American or even a third-tier government official. You have a prosecutor with super-ordinary powers coupled with the President forbidding you from taking the 5th and the CIA and every other agency in town is gyrating through the most obscene butt-covering maneuvers since Watergate and all this gets directed at one little guy for supposedly lying to a secret Grand Jury through numerous hours of testimony about snippets of hundreds of conversations.
Just how did Libby get what he deserved Ed?
PS: About the jury system…we accept them when we think the proceedings are fair regardless of the outcome. When they are not fair or are shown to be unfair in the future we REJECT them. That is part of the process too.
I think anyone who is indicted, tried, and convicted, and then appeals and loses, should server their sentence. Regardless of who the felon is or who the president is … regardless of what party they represent.
No crime committed? Evidently there was in this case. I get sick and tired of the “right wingers can do not wrong” crowd saying there was no crime committed. Evidently in this country lieing to federal agents still is a crime. Should Bush pardon him, no, but he will, he has shown he will do whatever he wants to do regardless of the rule of law in this land. Waste of skin.
It’s a free country. Everybody’s entitled to an opinion.
As to Libby getting a “fair” trial? No. He didn’t. It was a POLITICAL TRIAL. In DC. Where Libby managed to hire a black lawyer. And, the black judge was enraged at “one of his own.”
Did Ted Wells make mistakes? YOU BET, HE DID! He let Tim Russert OFF the stand! After this error, he tried calling him back. But couldn’t do it. The music had stopped playing.
That Libby has a lot to learn? Yes. He “just wasn’t an ordinary worker going to DC, either. He got what was once called a “plum job.” Inside the White House.
But the White House was under siege. And, Bush rather enjoys it, when people jump on their swords for him.
You really should read Paul O’Neill’s book “The Price of Loyalty.”
Because what sticks out most, here? Why was Libby so loyal? He could have easily made Bush’s life a nightmare. But he chose, instead, to JUMP ON HIS SWORD.
That there will be an Appeals process? It’s possible Judge Walton can stick him in the can, just the same. And, if there’s any slower torture than our current judicial “Appeals Process” I have no idea what it could be.
At least Fred Thompson’s said “he’d pardon the man!” Which beats just about anyone else’s take on the campaign trail.
Libby got misapplied justice. That’s all. Comes in shades that are different if you’re a donkey. Or a monkey. And, way different if the press gets mad.
Why was the press so mad? It seemed Bush’s White House was LEAK PROOF.
Still, we’ve got two more years to go. Yet, just like Jimmuh Carter, our guy goes overseas to hear applause. Will it matter?
Today, Arlen Spector noticed … I mean he NOTICED … that the Immigration “pass” is running into trouble.
Gee. If it wasn’t for Drudge’s RED LETTERED HEADLINE; I might have thought most of the whores in the whore house of congress were busy ignoring all of us, out here.
Libby is going to jail because he hired a stink-o lawyer. Shows ya. A lot of people would have preferred to hire Bennett, over Wells. Or just about anybody else; where the decision whom you’re hiring is critical.
But then? Libby got excited going to work for the Bush White House!
Do you know how many Jews are no longer there?
Bush had an interesting game plan. Hire the Jews to do the dirty work. And, they did. A lot of good it’s doing any of them now!
A lot of stuff went wrong on Bush’s watch.
Similar to watching Jimmuh Carter also unable to make really good decisions. While both men pray a lot. (Or, as Mort Sahl said: Gee, all that praying is sure annoying the Man Upstairs!)
When Bush leaves in about 600 days? I don’t think he’ll have a reputation left.
And, if the immigration deal tanks? It means the press lies when it says the “mood of the people” is one of “acceptance.”
I don’t even know what kinds of choices I’d have made. But Libby sure made a few beauts! For instance, he saw the internal insanities real up close and personal. What registered?
Watching Libby is like watching a cancer diagnosis play out. And, sometimes the patient is the last person willing to admit the truth.
Miscarriages of justice, by the way. LINGERS. Just think of it as Sacco & Vincetti. At least, here, it’s 30 months and not your life.
Oh, and for good measure? John Roberts will have the same kind of court that Rehnquist already bequeathed. Just a bunch of lawyers who wear robes instead of Seville Row suits.
What a basket to put eggs in!
Scooter Libby Sentenced to 30 Months plus $250,000 plus Community Service
I am so angry right now, my heart really isn't into writing about this. To put it bluntly, I feel that Patrick Fitzgerald is the one who should be facing jail time. I think Richard Armitage should be on the block. And most especially do I think…
he claimed that Dick CHENEY SENT HIM on the mission.
No he didn’t Jon.
Wilson correctly stated the chain of events that led him to Niger.
In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990’s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president’s office.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm
He didn’t claim Cheney sent him. He correctly stated that the CIA sent him after an inquiry from the vice president’s office.
Also, the CIA says that Plame did not suggest Wilson for the trip, but she did act on his behalf after he was suggested. But make no mistake about it, she did not “send” him to Niger.
Over the past months, however, the CIA has maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) — not by his wife — largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report.
Wilson maintains that his wife was asked that day by one of her bosses to write a memo about his credentials for the mission–after they had selected him. That memo apparently was included in a cable to officials in Africa seeking concurrence with the choice of Wilson, the Senate report said.
Valerie Wilson’s other role, according to intelligence officials, was to tell Wilson he had been selected, and then to introduce him at a meeting at the CIA on Feb. 19, 2002, in which analysts from different agencies discussed the Niger trip. She told the Senate committee she left the session after her introduction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081001918_pf.html
I don’t have time right now to refute your other claims, but…
His lies are well documented publicly and damn near irrefutably.
If this is so, why don’t you provide some evidence of it… PLEASE. When someone makes claims and doesn’t back them up, as well as have claims shot down repeatedly (see many of my posts regarding your claims including this one), one tends not to believe them. Please back up this claim.
Second, you avoid the main issue that Plame’s CIA employment is of no consequnce to refuting Wilson. He correctly says in the op-ed who sent him. Why did Plame’s wife need to be brought into it, ESPECIALLY since it meant blowing her covert cover?
Kudos to Ed for bucking the knee-jerk Right-wing trend to be-moan Libby’s conviction, and supporting the Rule of Law instead.
Pardon Libby? By Jan 09 the president will have to pardon every democrat currently serving in congress or there will be a one party congress. Fraud, corruption, Traitors, and Crime has taken over both houses. Gonzales isn’t done yet or he will be done himself.
Ed’s correct, of course, that trial by jury is how we determine guilt in this country. The jury’s guilty verdict is conclusive. In the context of the criminal justice system, the first, and most important, phase is over. And as Ed says, Libby’s appeal is likely to fail.
Of course, there’s also something called “prosecutorial discretion”, even when you have a special prosecutor. There remain legitimate issues of whether Fitzgerald abused that discretion in deciding to indict and proceed to trial.
Armitage admitted outing Plame first, although he claimed he didn’t know she was covert. Fitzgerald knew this early in his investigation. Armitage skated free nonetheless.
Libby didn’t commit the underlying offense (outing a covert CIA agent, thereby endangering her life), but lied to protect Cheney. At this juncture, it’s unclear that those lies were even necessary, since Cheney, the neo-cons, and the White House weren’t responsible for outing Plame.
As we watch them scramble to parlay their notoriety into cash, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame increasingly expose their venal and partisan natures. It’s indecent exposure, worthy of the moonbat wing of the Democrat Party.
There are many people who look much worse than Scooter Libby right now.
The case was open and shut, Libby lied at least 6 times and possibly as many as 9. Libby showed no remorse,pretty sure uncle dick has already promised a pardon. Scooter will have a gravy job at a neo-con thinktank when he gets out. The Iraq war continues to drag bush and the country down.
So if Libby does this socalled richly deserved two years for lying under oath….why is Bill Clinton running around free? Didn’t he commit perjury? Not to mention Berger…just admit it, there’s a double standard. In media coverage and in legal results. The ‘D’ is a get out of jail free card.
So if Libby does this socalled richly deserved two years for lying under oath….why is Bill Clinton running around free? Didn’t he commit perjury?
I think you need to recheck history, Clinton was impeached by the House, it was your GOP Senate that left you down.
Jaeger … your “D” get out of jail free card is meaningless until I see Tom Delay serving time.
Monkei-
Your comments are so wildly out of line with reality that they beg at least a short response. First, Clinton, in fact, ADMITTED committing perjury and obstructing justice. He lost his law license after he admitted his guilt.
Second, regarding Delay – he was accused of violating a law that didn’t exist when the alleged “violations” occured and that had no retroactive clause, to my knowledge. As such, your mindless hatred in calling for his serving time is just that.
To the Captian-
I must respectfully disagree, and strongly so. As others have commented, there was massive amounts of testimony regarding other members of the Whitehouse staff that absolutely nothing to do with the case, and the jurors’ comments prove this. The fact that the juror comments centered on, in effect, how “someone else should be in jail, it sucks that we *have* to find Libby guilty” alone shows that they were NOT, in fact, deliberating the appropriate facts and issues in this case. A non-bias judge, having heard such statements, should have thrown the whole case out at that point by declaring a mistrial.
It is also possible that Libby’s entire defense team was moronic. In that case, he should have hired someone else. But, until I have read the case transcripts, if ever, I am NOT ready to say that improper testimony wasn’t entered into the record and put before the jury, completely invalidating the trial. And if this did happen, and the judge allowed it over objections, then there is no way the decision will not be overturned on appeal and sent back for a re-trial.
Simply put, as an attorney, when I hear these kinds of comments from the jurors, and knowing what we do know, as the public, about what evidence was presented regarding the actual accusations themselves (little more than he said/she said), my alarm bells go off and I begin to doubt the legitimacy of the whole proceeding.
That is, however, only severe doubt. Until I can read the transcripts, I can never be sure.
the sinner,
Charles
For all of those who talk about the trial being a “lynching” in plain sight, I’m sure that the next person who gets in trouble with the law and one side claims a travesty that you’ll all be out there agreeing with ’em right?
Look, he got as fair a trial as there is in the world and a jury of his peers said he was guilty. What more do you really want?
As for Bill Kristol… I still haven’t fogotten him throwing the president under the bus with respect to his iraq engagement. I have little to no respect for HIS loyalty or courage, that’s for sure.
quickjustice said:
Ed’s correct, of course, that trial by jury is how we determine guilt in this country. The jury’s guilty verdict is conclusive. In the context of the criminal justice system, the first, and most important, phase is over. And as Ed says, Libby’s appeal is likely to fail.
No, not if he has a decent attorney for the appeal. I felt that at trial Libby’s strategy (really his lawyer’s) was to debate the facts at issue. That was a lost cause with a “hanging” jury. The other issues, which were brought up just to “get them on the table” but were unlikely to be decided by any trial judge were the issues involving whether or not the special prosecutor had the necessary standing to bring the charges against Libby.
I won’t say that is an “open and shut case,” but I do think that the current Supremes would have little trouble finding that he did not. This is a pretty complex issue, and I won’t try to describe the legal ramifications, just the issue.
If, and we know he did, Fitzgerald found out that Palme was outed by Richard Armitage, did he need to either go back to the Attorney General for additional authority, or at least tell him that the leak apparently came from the State Department? I would love to be able to say that the rules are clear, but they are not. Fitzgerald did not have the authority to investigate a leak at the State Department. Could he continue to investigate a leak from the White House, knowing about the State Department leak? If so for how long?
My read is that the current Supreme Court would prefer to find that Fitzgerald needed to get permission to investigate perjury, than to set hard and fast guidelines about abuse of discretion . Even if he wasn’t required to report to Congress, the White House, or to Congress, that Richard Armitage did leak the information, he shouldn’t have kept it close for over a year. It is not real hard to do it right, and certainly other special prosecutors have gone back several times to get additional investigatory authority.
But obviously, if Fitzgerald had done that, the investigation would have been shut down before Libby testified, and before a NYT reporter spent a year in jail protecting a source that needed no protection. It would have also ended the whole Palme fracas almost before it started. That’s why I think that the Supreme Court, if it gets that far, will throw out the conviction for those reasons. But they will try to hang it on a technical detail, rather than that “he was way out of line.”
Both Ann Coulter and Fred Thompson are lawyers, Fred was a prosecutor, a primary instrument inthe Watergate hearings – and they and Pat Cadell all said the charges against Libby were uncalled for, as Fittypatty already knew who the leakers were – and the leakers were not prosecuted, the investigation then took a totally unwarranted direction towards Libby.
Libby was only prosecuted for not having the same MEMORY as several DEMOCRATS, and the DEMOCRATS were confronted with CONTRARY FACTS to their own memories – BUT THE DEMOCRATS’ faulty memories were dismissively treated, IN SPITE OF FACTS, while LIBBY’s faulty memories WERE NOT DISMISSIVELY TREATED when confronted with contrary AND FAULTY WITNESSES. BUT NOT WITH CONTRARY FACTS.
Fred pointed out the judge then ignored the recommendations of the probation officer for lighter and more ordinarily common sentencing.
Underlining everything, Plame wasn’t covert and Plame lied to Congress – and the fruitcake from the State Dept is who “leaked” her name – Fittypatty knew THAT from DAY 3 as did Robert Novak who is still treated as if he has a credible reputation.
No, the sentencing isn’t right, it isn’t justice, the CASE BEING BROUGHT was not Justice.
It was DIM RAILROADING.
It was pathetic.
Respecting “The LAWWW” doesn’t demand we sugar coat and endorse this mess.
A jury of Americans found OJ Simpson Not Guilty.
A jury of Americans found Michael Jackson Not Guilty.
A jury of American Senators found NOT TO REMOVE Clinton from office after the House of Representatives CONVICTED him of impeachable offenses.
That doesn’t mean they get to poke our eyes out and stuff our ears with cement.
?????????????????????????????
HOW did Libby obstruct the investigation when Armitage told Fittypatty he himself was the man on DAY 3 of the investigation, AS ARMITAGE AND NOVAK ADMITTED TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, before Libby’s trial got started???????????????????????
?????????????????????????
Armitage and Novak both confessed their parts on Fox News, I don’t know about any of the rest of hte MSM …….
THIS is pathetic beyond belief.
I guess God is letting Libby go through this because God wants to bless Libby for being persecuted for being a GOP member.
Posted by: Jon Prichard at June 5, 2007 12:48 PM
*************
I cite Fred Thompson in this case, not because of his bid for President, but because he was a Watergate prosecutor, and he said ( to Hannity and Colmes viewers, on Tuesday nite) this case was so ridiculous that he called Libby and volunteered to help him, professionally, if he needed his help. Fred didn’t tell the Fox viewers what Libby’s response was, however.
Posted by: Tom Shipley at June 5, 2007 2:18 PM
***********
McCain is a Republican, so is Dah Ahnold Man.
So is Lindsey Graham
So is Olympia Snowe
So is Susan Collins
So is Lincoln Chafee
So WHAT?
All this whining is unjustified. Captain is right about the Libby case and the armchair judicial experts should focus their time and energy on cases that actually matter. Guess what- Scotter isn’t the second coming nor is he a great victim of our time.
Many, many cases are based on circumstantial evidence and result in a conviction. This isn’t a capital case, so the type of evidence is entirely appropriate.
All this whining is unjustified. Captain is right
Sorry, the Captain is way wrong on this and the whining is justified. This was not justice.
“He did not mention Maryk. It was Queeg, Queeg, Queeg.”
I have a problem when Citizen A gets convicted and the jury comes outside and wonders why Citizen B wasn’t on trial so they could convict him too. That’s a red flag indicating a wandering prosecution oozing a conviction out of guilt by association.
I also find the concept that Libby’s lies blocked the righteous prosecution of Cheney and Rove, to be the stuff of X-files melodrama. Stipulating Libby’s lies as proven–it’s a lie, not destruction of physical evidence. If Libby lied, then the opposite of his statements are the truth; and if he’s convicted of lying, that fact can be cited as evidence. So rather than preventing proof of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, Libby would have belatedly and involuntarily established it–if there were any VRWC to prove.
Finally, we’re already seeing the practical fallout of the Libby conviction–in any future politically charged investigation, where a federal employee’s testimony may disagree with that of other witnesses, on such matters as may be woven into a narrative of conspiracy to obstruct justice–that federal employee is going to take the Fifth. We should all consider at what point our government punishes contradictory accounts as felony perjury.
For all those reasons I’m not doing backflips over this verdict. Given the verdict, the sentencing is appropriate and I wish fewer suspended sentences were handed down in the Beltway. If Libby’s trial was marred by procedural issues we can trust the 4th Circuit to remedy it; we just had two fine examples of judiciary nitpicking flash across the headlines.
“I also find the concept that Libby’s lies blocked the righteous prosecution of Cheney and Rove, to be the stuff of X-files melodrama. Stipulating Libby’s lies as proven–it’s a lie, not destruction of physical evidence. If Libby lied, then the opposite of his statements are the truth; and if he’s convicted of lying, that fact can be cited as evidence. So rather than preventing proof of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, Libby would have belatedly and involuntarily established it–if there were any VRWC to prove.”
I should have said, if his perjury were material to such a prosecution of Rove and Cheney. If it were material, those points may now be presented as proven; if they were immaterial, they were no barrier to the investigators in the first place. Hence, the notion that Libby blocked punishment of Rove and Cheney for their crimes, is phony.
Perjury is one of the hardest crimes to prove because of the “faulty memory” defense. So I think it says something that Libby was found guilty and given a harsh sentence (unless you subscribe to the notion that entire jury and the judge are partisan democrats out to get Libby.)
But, aside from that, let’s look at the facts of the case.
One of Libby’s claims is that he learned that Plame was a CIA agent from Tim Russert.
Russert testified that he did not tell Libby this and that he didn’t know who Plame was until several days after the conversation when Novak’s column was published.
Marc Grossman, a State Department official; Cathie Martin, Vice President Cheney’s spokeswoman; and Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, all testified that they had conversations with Libby about Plame working for the CIA prior to his conversation with Russert.
Libby testified that he did see a note from Cheney which said Plame was a CIA agent prior to his conversation with Russert, but then “forgot” about the content.
Perjury is one of the hardest crimes to prove because of the “faulty memory” defense. So I think it says something that Libby was found guilty and given a harsh sentence (unless you subscribe to the notion that entire jury and the judge are partisan democrats out to get Libby.
But, aside from that, let’s look at the facts of the case.
One of Libby’s claims is that he learned that Plame was a CIA agent from Tim Russert.
Russert testified that he didn’t know who Plame was until several days later when Novak’s column was published.
Marc Grossman, a State Department official; Cathie Martin, Vice President Cheney’s spokeswoman; and Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, all testified that they had conversations with Libby about Plame working for the CIA prior to his conversation with Russert.
Libby testified that he did see a note from Cheney which said Plame was a CIA agent prior to his conversation with Russert, but then “forgot” about the content.
Now, tell me, does this seem like a weak case to any of you? One that’s contingent only on Russert’s memory?
Oops, kind of messed that post up. Here’s how it should read…
Perjury is one of the hardest crimes to prove because of the “faulty memory” defense. So I think it says something that Libby was found guilty and given a harsh sentence (unless you subscribe to the notion that entire jury and the judge are partisan democrats out to get Libby.)
But, aside from that, let’s look at the facts of the case:
-One of Libby’s claims is that he learned that Plame was a CIA agent from Tim Russert.
-Russert testified that he did not tell Libby this and that he didn’t know who Plame was until several days after the conversation when Novak’s column was published.
–Marc Grossman, a State Department official; Cathie Martin, Vice President Cheney’s spokeswoman; and Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, all testified that they had conversations with Libby about Plame working for the CIA prior to his conversation with Russert.
-Libby testified that he did see a note from Cheney which said Plame was a CIA agent prior to his conversation with Russert, but then “forgot” about the content.
Now, tell me, does this seem like a weak case to any of you? One that’s contingent only on Russert’s memory?
Weak relative to what?
As far as explaining how Dick Armitage came to pass Plame’s status to David Broder? It’s paper thin.
At this juncture, it’s unclear that those lies were even necessary, since Cheney, the neo-cons, and the White House weren’t responsible for outing Plame.
Yes there were. After Cheney read Wilson’s op-ed he scribbled a note on it saying something about Wilson’s wife. (Libby testified about this note in the trial.) Cheney set the ball in motion for Armitage, Libby and Rove telling members of the press about Plame’s employment at the CIA.
Each one of these acts outed her.
The Yell,
People posted how they thought the perjury case against Libby was weak. So, I’m referring to the perjury case against Libby.
Do you think it was weak?
And if you’re NOT talking about Dick Armitage giving Valerie Plame’s status to David Broder, then why all the fuss about her life endangered and reputation destroyed?
That’s what ruined her as a CIA agent–Broder’s column, cleared by Armitage and some CIA desk jockey.
Not what Cheney told Libby, or what Libby told Russert, or when.
The Yell, do you mean Novak, not Broder?
If you do, both Armitage and Rove were his source for that column.
>>Cheney set the ball in motion for Armitage, Libby and Rove telling members of the press about Plame’s employment at the CIA.
Each one of these acts outed her.
The Yell,
I believe you mean Novak, not Broder. If you mean Broder, please explain what exactly you’re talking about.
By the way, here’s a timeline of events that occured:
As Cheney read Wilson’s article, a perturbed Vice President scribbled down questions he wanted pursued.
“Have they [CIA officials] done this sort of thing before?” Cheney wrote. “Send an Amb[assador] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”
Though Cheney did not write down Plame’s name, his questions indicated that he was aware that she worked for the CIA and was in a position (dealing with WMD issues) to have a hand in her husband’s assignment to check out the Niger reports.
“Those annotations support the proposition that publication of the Wilson Op-Ed acutely focused the attention of the Vice President and the defendant – his chief of staff [Libby] – on Mr. Wilson, on the assertions made in his article, and on responding to these assertions,” special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald later wrote in a court filing.
That same eventful day – July 6, 2003 – Armitage called Carl W. Ford Jr., the assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, at home and asked him to send a copy of Grossman’s memo to Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to a former department official interviewed by the New York Times.
Since Powell was preparing to leave with Bush on a state visit to Africa, Ford forwarded Grossman’s memo to the White House for delivery to Powell, the former official told the Times. [NYT, July 16, 2005]
The next day, July 7, 2003, Bush left for Africa with Powell and other senior officials. But administration officials who stayed behind in Washington stepped up their efforts to counteract Wilson’s Op-Ed.
On July 8, 2003, Libby gave Judith Miller more details about the Wilsons. Libby said Wilson’s wife worked at a CIA unit responsible for weapons intelligence and non-proliferation. Miller wrote down the words “Valerie Flame,” an apparent misspelling of Mrs. Wilson’s maiden name. [NYT, Oct. 16, 2005]
That same day, Novak had his interview with Armitage. Novak later recalled that Armitage divulged Plame’s identity toward the end of an hour-long interview.
So Libby told Miller about Plame’s CIA employment THE SAME DAY Armitage told Novak.
And both seemingly were prompted by Cheney’s memo…
I must be slipping, it was Novak.
And he did NOT testify that Armitage gave up her ‘identity’ at the end of the interview.
“In my sworn testimony, I said what I have contended in my columns and on television: The role of Joe Wilson’s wife in instituting her husband’s mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent.
Following my interview with the primary source, I sought out the second administration official and the CIA spokesman for confirmation. I learned Valerie Plame’s name from Joe Wilson’s entry in “Who’s Who in America.”
I considered his wife’s role in initiating Wilson’s mission, later confirmed by the Senate intelligence committee, to be a previously undisclosed part of an important news story. I reported it on that basis.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201519.html
I guess the next step is to find how Cheney got Joe Wilson in “Who’s Who” and how a copy got on Novak’s bookshelf. We’re through the looking glass people…
The Yell, who cares if Wilson listed Plame as his wife in Who’s Who? That IN NO WAY insinuates that Plame worked for the CIA.
Armitage and Rove are responsible for Novak knowing that information.
Again, here’s the timeline. Cheney writes a note asking whether Wilson was set on a junket by his wife.
Two days later, both Armitage and Libby tell reporters that Wilson’s wife sent him on the trip.
So
A) Your defense of Libby that Armitage was the first to reveal Plame’s CIA employment to reporters is incorrect.
B) Cheney DID set their actions in motion with the memo.
Now, back to the question you did not answer. Do you believe the perjury charge against Libby is weak?
Maybe Libby can provide documentation he was in the US illegally before 01/07 and get amnesty; then he will remain free and only pay a $5000 fine.
“The Yell, who cares if Wilson listed Plame as his wife in Who’s Who? That IN NO WAY insinuates that Plame worked for the CIA.
Armitage and Rove are responsible for Novak knowing that information.”
That’s not what Novak has said.
“How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson’s “Who’s Who in America” entry. ”
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2003/10/01/the_cia_leak
It seems to me an orchestrated smear job of the sort you describe would have given out her NAME, without trusting he’d find it through commercial reference works. Nor was this orchestrated smear job so powerfully juicy that any of those journalists but Novak bit–and that’s because he had his own line of questioning to pursue: how did a lifelong Democrat like Wilson get trusted by the Bush Administration on such a key mission?
According to him. I dunno if you want to believe him. But if you don’t, if you want to take him apart because you don’t trust the trial as an instrument of Truth–then I think you’re pretty much in the same boat as the Free Libby crowd.
How powerful was it? It was false statements, I don’t know if I accept that it was done to mislead, and I never accepted the Clinton era arguments that misleading false testimony wasn’t always perjury. If there weren’t procedural errors I can accept the verdict for our law as written.
A “duly constituted jury” heard the evidence in the O.J. Simpson trial, too. Doesn’t mean that the verdict was just.
The charges were bogus. The prosecution was politically motivated, period. No Republican official can possibly get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., which is heavily Democrat, given today’s political polarization. What we’ve seen was a political lynching, plain and simple.
Bush needs to pardon Libby. Period.
Yell,
As to Clifford May’s claim that he knew Plame’s identity prior to Novak’s column and that Plame’s employment at the CIA was “widely known,” it’s interested to point out that
A) He spoke to Fitzgerald’s team as part of the investigation, but was not called to the grand jury.
B) Fitzgerald wrote in a letter afterword: “we advised you during the Jan. 18 conference call that we were not aware of any reporters who knew prior to July 14, 2003, that Valerie Plame, Ambassador Wilson’s wife, worked at the CIA, other than: Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, Bob Novak, Walter Pincus and Matthew Cooper.”
C) Fitzgerald said Plame’s status as a CIA employee was not widely known outside the agency.
D) May did not repeat his claim after that column.
And most importantly, Fitzgerald says the CIA told him Plame’s status was covert and agency was taking steps to keep her employment status concealed.
Whether she appears in Who’s Who as Wilson’s wife is completely irrelevant.
And one more thing, what procedural errors are you referring to?
Libbey was convicted and sentenced not because of what he did but because who he was…a powerful republican. Just as Mike Nifong was hoping to do in North Carolina, Fitzgerald got a sympathetic jury to convict not based on evidence but on emotion.
Berger was let off because the DOJ got the best deal it could get. If the case went to trial, Berger would have been found innocent.
Up front I admit freely I haven’t kept up with much of the recent details. But…
I still, despite the article frequently referenced, have a tough time believing Plame was significantly “outed” as some kind of covert agent… at least as listed in the relevant statues. Maybe it’s true… maybe it’s not. I’ve seen plenty enough conflicting lack of real evidence that it’s a call I can’t make reasonably. Most of the people arguing it back and forth… are arguing on media accounts discussing no significantly real evidence.
A statement by a prosecutor isn’t evidence, unless it’s backed up by real evidence. I’ve got some heartburn over it being characterized as “irrelevant” during the tiral, so he didn’t have to prove it… but critical to sentencing.
It’s still lost on a good many folks that this woman used her post within the CIA to help arrange her husband’s opportunity to not only attack her own agency’s reports, but make political charged attacks on the President. Much of the details he used in his attacking… later turned out to be based entirely on his own world of fiction.
Assuming for the momment, for the sake of argument, that all the other principle players did exactly what many allege they did… and “outed” her for some kind of “revenge”…
We’re talking about someone who should’ve been kicked to the curb, professionally, about 12 minutes after this came out. The CIA isn’t a place where we need people enabling folks like Wilson to make baseless political attacks. She should have been fired (my opinion), and if it was determined it wouldn’t affect existing operations or endanger any lives… publicly outted.
President Pho might’ve done it in a prime time press conference, just to slap down the stupidity that was happening at the time. I’d have spelled out her role in the fiasco, as well as the ineptness of Wilson’s original claims.
(this is one area I wish Bush and his people would do more purposful, on a wide variety of topics, than hoping the information needed by the American people gets out to them by osmosis)
But that’s me…
Whether Libby “deserves” his sentance… I didn’t follow the trial very well.
What is evident, is regardless of any other issues about whether Libby did or didn’t lie, or did or didn’t obstruct justice… I hope somewhere this episode sticks in the minds of people about how special prosecutors can sure run way out past what they were originally intended to investigate. I do honestly believe Libby was used by the special prosecutor to justify the ongoing nature of his efforts… once he’d already determined he couldn’t prosecute the offenses he was originally investigating.
I really did stop following this fiasco once I realized that we were dealing with allegedly flakey memories, and the prosecutor was taking the sides of a number of folks with allegedly flakey memories… who had vested professional and partisan interests in using the outcome of the investigation, the grand jury process, and the trial to make trash against Libby’s boss. One only has to look at Chris Matthews antics to realize it.
Did Libby help set himself up for it? Yeah, he quite possibly did. Does it stand up on appeal? I haven’t any clue. Should Bush eventually pardon him if it does stand on appeal? I would, if I were him. If for no other reason than to let him retire to some other part of his life outside public service, and maybe give him some peace from the decades of media hatchet jobs that are going to be done to him. Bush is going to take heat no matter what he does… a little more for pardoning Libby isn’t going to even amount to a pimple on a bug’s butt at this point.
If former presidents can pardon drug dealers who pony up the cash… I think it very reasonable to pardon a loyal public servant who got drawn into this mess.
But with any luck at all, I’m hoping this is the end of this absurd special prosecutor practice.
Sccoter libby should spend just as much time in jail for lying to the legal system as Bill Clinton did for lying to the legal system and the American people…which was…(cue sounds of crickets chirping)
After reading your blog for several years, I am surprised and rather disappointed you are so wrong on this topic. I’m trying to figure out if you are just uninformed or have some other bone to pick.
1. There was no crime.
2. Armitage was the leaker and the prosecutor knew it. The “investigation” should have ended.
3. Armitage let Libby twist in the wind. Even after Libby unselfishly offered to help Armitage in a previous matter.
4. The “witnesses” all had hazy and contradictory memories.
30 months? There is NO justification. What Fred Thompson stated about the case on Hannity last night was exactly correct.
It’s Novak who said her “CIA status was widely known” and then cites May as an example.
A) Novak did appear in court to testify.
B) Novak clearly did not limit his “widely known” comment to reporters. The example he cited was a party worker. Further Novak has made clear he doesn’t give names unless his source gives the OK, we have no idea how many people or whom are the basis of his “widely known” remark and probably never will.
C) So the prosecutor and a key witness disagree on those facts. I don’t see that’s relevant to the issue of whether or not Libby made false statements under oath; it may have something to do with the wholly separate question of the mechanics of a White House spin machine, but that’s not what the trial was about.
D) “May did not repeat his claim after that column”. Did he recant? Or just not get asked for publication?
“And most importantly, Fitzgerald says the CIA told him Plame’s status was covert and agency was taking steps to keep her employment status concealed.” I think this is actually much less important than Novak’s assertion that the CIA rep, Mr. Harlow, did not say that when Novak asked for a green light.
The Free Libby crowd is saying that Libby should be freed because he was only convicted on a VRWC theory. You seem to be rebutting that argument by saying his crimes are serious because of a VRWC theory. The concern for the safety and career of a spy who does a photo spread in Vanity Fair in front of her house and bright red convertible moves me notatall.
I’m saying, if he made false statements under oath, he’s in trouble, because we’re all obliged to avoid that.
Whether the country wants 30 months penitentiary time handed down when people in DC testify to conflicting accounts, is a serious point to consider, because if it’s a Yes there’s going to be a lot more people taking the Fifth before Congress and grand juries.
-IF- as some here allege there were errors in what Fitzgerald told the jury, the proper answer is an appeal.
Tom Shipley said: Now, tell me, does this seem like a weak case to any of you? One that’s contingent only on Russert’s memory?
Actually, yes. Let me take you on a bit of a detour, through (gasp!) logic:
1. Valerie Palme is AKA Valerie Wilson.
2. Valerie Wilson is Joe Wilson’s wife.
3. Joe Wilson’ wife is a CIA agent.
Therefore Valerie Palme is a CIA agent.
Any disagreement with the above logic? I hope not. The problem in understanding the Scooter Libby perjury trial is that the prosecution kept asking people when they learned that Valerie Palme was a CIA agent, when many of them including Russert, asserted that they put the above pieces together. As for Libby, he learned things in the reverse of the above order. So he associated learning that Valerie Wilson was also known as Valerie Palme He couldn’t leak Valerie Palme’s identity until he knew it. And yes there were classified documents available to Libby that covered point 3–without mentioning either her first or last name. Anyone familiar with classified documents would know not only that this is normal practice, but that often a document will be classified to one level, with a separate document with a higher or codeword classification attaching names to identities.
I would not be at all surprised to learn that Scooter had access to a document that described the relationship between Joe Wilson and Valerie Palme, with the actual names in an annex or appendix. When reading such a document, there is often no reason to read the annex, or even to ask for access to it.
In fact, to be pretty blunt, I’m pretty sure that any copy of Joe Wilson’s report would have been classified SECRET or TOP SECRET, and the appendix with his name and his wife’s name would normally be also compartmented as SCI.
Notice that the government would be putting a lot of effort into ‘concealing’ what everyone who attended the wedding–or read Wilson’s Who’s Who entry could know. The idea is that by making it more difficult for an adversary to ‘connect the dots’ some dots will remain unconnected.
In other words an adversary who knew of a covert agent only by the name Valerie Palme, wouldn’t be able to look up that name in Who’s Who. Even if they did, they would have to either build a reverse index or scan the entire volume to find a piece of information that might be there. (Does the CIA have lots of people putting such information into computer databases for just that reason? You bet.)
So, if Scooter Libby spoke to a reporter and mentioned that Joe Wilson’s wife got him the job. –or for that matter if Richard Armitage did the same thing–they could do so without knowing that Valerie Wilson was Valerie Palme, and that she had worked with NOC (no official cover: not a diplomat). If Valerie went on the trip with Joe, she would have been under official cover–Joe was a US Ambassador, so she would have been an official dependent.
So assuming that the wife of a diplomat had diplomatic cover not NOC would be almost automatic for anyone who did not know otherwise. And as I said above, even most people with access to the information would not have read it.
Let me expand on that. There are three parts to accessing classified information. First is mandatory access: do you have the proper clearance or clearances? Second is need to know. Does your job require you to have access to the information. Finally there is want to know. 😉 The easiest way to avoid security violations is to minimize the amount of classified information you know. If I had to read and review a large (novel sized) document with a classified appendix, I would write the review without reading the appendix. Then if necessary, I could refer to the appendix to verify that the review was correct. By writing the review before reading the annex I was taking advantage of want to know.
A concrete example to make this easier to understand. Let’s say I was reviewing specifications for a new radar system to be fitted to a fighter jet. Some of numbers in the specification would be classified, such as the range of the radar, the frequency it operated at, and some of the operational modes supported. My review might require me to insure that the range of the radar was sufficient to the mission. I’d write the report assuming that it was, then check. I probably would not need to know the frequency, so no want to know–don’t look at that page. Finally if the modes that my analysis concluded were needed were listed in the unclassified part of the document, I wouldn’t need to look at the classified appendix. Someone else, reviewing from a different perspective might need to.
I know that looks like a pretty big digression, but it is not. I am sure that Libby would have used the want to know approach with respect to the name of Joe Wilson’s wife–at least where classified documents were concerned. As long as he didn’t know it, he couldn’t disclose it. I can believe that the penny didn’t drop until someone asked him, “…about Joe Wilson’s wife, you know Valerie Palme.” No he didn’t know, thank you very much, and now he could go to jail for using that name. If you deal with classified information, that is the sort of detail you remember.
Robert,
Here is the language of the statute that protects covert agent’s identity. This defines the illegal act:
(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Libby’s indictment states that Plame’s status was classified. Fitzgerald’s summary of the case states she was a covert agent for whom the CIA was taking affirmative step to protect her identity.
Now, notice it says identifies, not names a covert agent.
Saying Joe Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent identifies Valerie Plame is a CIA agent, since any person with two brain cells can then go figure out who she is.
The only hitch in prosecuting Rove, Libby and Armitage is whether or not they knew Plame was covert. Seems they didn’t. But when Fitzgerald was trying to determine if this very serious crime took place, Libby lied to him — blatantly. Hence, his perjury charge and conviction.
It’s a rather simple story. And Rove, Armitage and Libby may not have knowingly outed a covert CIA agent, but they still outed her, which I would think be enough to lose one’s security clearance. Regardless, Bush said the leakers would be dealt with severely.
Armitage and Libby are no longer at the White House. Why no action against Rove?
Posted by Tom Shipley at anytime on this thread
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It’s like banging your head against a brick wall trying to reason with these folks. I would feel sorry for the dittodolts…
if I didn’t despise them so much for ruining our country.